


Witness

by sanidine



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chocolate Box Exchange, Established Relationship, F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 04:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17543069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanidine/pseuds/sanidine
Summary: They traveled for many long hours through the perpetual night.





	Witness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snickfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/gifts).



> Treat fic for the Chocolate Box 2019 exchange.
> 
> I had no idea how badly I wanted this until I read your prompt letter, hope you enjoy!

They traveled for many long hours through the perpetual night, the iced runners of their small sledge skimming easily over the frozen terrain. It was only when they had arrived a wide expanse of level ice, flanked to the east by a jumble of pressure ridges, that Silna had signaled to Goodsir that they should stop and make their new camp.

Together they constructed the dwelling by the wondrous flickering lights of the aurora, working in silence in the biting cold, no need for discussion of what had become rote through much practice. They warmed the interior of the shelter with their bodies and, after, they rested. Goodsir used the Silna's knife to slice thin strips of seal meat for them to eat; it was only his past experience with a scalpel that had kept him from accidentally amputating one of his own fingers the first few times that he had attempted to use the ulu, but he no longer drew his own blood when he used the tool.

During his slow recovery, Goodsir had often thought of how he might chronicle the things that Silna taught him, the many survival strategies that were not, as far as Goodsir was aware, recorded in any article. It had been a balm for him in those first days when the horror and calamity of what had befallen the crew had still been so fresh. If Goodsir should be the sole survivor of the Franklin Expedition, should he not at least contribute something of worth to the scientific record beyond the grim truth of the lead? But if those thoughts came to him still they were but as passing, airy fantasies. For Goodsir had long since come to understand that that he should never return to anywhere that would result in him writing articles for some journal of anthropology.

After some time had passed, Silna shrugged back into her parka. Though Silna could no longer speak, she had no need even to employ the language of handsignals to tell Goodsir what he already knew - that once again, the time had come. She clasped his hand in hers and then Silna left Goodsir behind to watch, as he always did, from just outside the entry to their shelter as she made her way out into the vast expanse of ice, buffeted but unbothered by the wind. The northern radiance hissed and rustled through the sky, but the wonder of the phenomenon was secondary that night as Goodsir kept his eyes on Silna as she finally stopped walking and sank down onto her knees.

It would never cease to awe Goodsir, to watch the Tuunbaq come. Now that Silna had bonded to it and he knew its nature, the great bear did not come loping out if the fog or stalking over the horizon. The Tuunbaq appeared the way of a sudden shear ridge thrusting itself out of the ice - not there at all, then all at once.

It materialized, condensed from the frigid air, spirit made solid as it came into form.

The Tuunbaq rose up so that it stood on two legs, looming over Silna, but for the briefest of moments Goodsir drew it's attention. The distance between them was great enough that Goodsir should not have been able to see it in as fine of detail as he did, but it was as if the creature were directly in front of him even though it had appeared at a distance of at least ninety meters. He could see its eyes, that too human gaze, the bottomless black pupils as they fixed on him. Every individual strand of hair in the thick fur. The serrated edges of it's deadly claws on the paws that hung ponderously at its sides.

Goodsir looked away. He always did. Silna had explained to Goodsir that he would eventually be able to regard the Tuunbaq in its entirety, that the ability to do so would come to him in time, but that day that had not yet come.

When Goodsir opened his eyes again the Tuunbaq had turned its attention back to Silna. It looked down upon her and Silna had tilted her head back so that she could meet it. Goodsir watched, rapt, as Silna and the Tuunbaq went to one another without hesitation. Their mouths latched together and Goodsir could see the way that the Tuunbaq's ribs expanded, the cathedral its body became that was not a place of any religion but rather the geometry of every living thing.

For a moment, all went silent. The howling wind, the shifting ice, the hissing aurora, the beating of Goodsir's own heart in his ears. Everything ceased. And then, when the ritual began in earnest, the air was charged by a sound that surpassed all description

The breath that passed between them. The song of the world

**Author's Note:**

> I write everything on a phone, so hopefully there aren't any terrible autocorrect errors, Kudos and comments are loved!


End file.
